Medicaid law allows an individual whose spouse needs nursing home care to keep as much as $101,640 in 2007, as well as the house, a car, certain life insurance policies and a few other assets. But this rule is misleading. Consider the following example.
Husband and Wife own a house, a car, and $100,000 in investment assets. Suppose that Husband needs to go to a nursing home. One would think he could get Medicaid immediately because there is only $100,000. However, the rule says that the spouse in the community can keep half of the total assets (the house and car are exempt and not included in this computation) but not more than the maximum amount, or $101,640.
In other words, in this example, Medicaid will not pay the nursing home costs until the couple has spent $50,000 because Wife is allowed to keep only half of the $100,000 they had when Husband entered the nursing home.
Is this the end of the story, or can Wife do something to enable her to keep the whole $100,000?
Continue reading “My spouse needs nursing home care; Can I keep all of our money?”